'Step forward' in Kashmir conflict

Two nuclear adversaries, India and Pakistan, remained at a military standoff on the disputed border of Kashmir today, after Pakistan made a gesture of reconciliation by arresting the leader of a militant group accused of a deadly attack on the Indian parliament.

India called the arrest "a step forward" and for the first time since the latest outbreak of tensions indicated that India may agree to one-on-one talks to diffuse the situation.

The Indian foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, did not rule out the possibility of talks between Indian and Pakistani leader during a south Asian regional summit meeting in Nepal next week. Pakistan has already said it is open to talks.

The latest tensions in Kashmir have led the two countries to their largest military build up for 15 years. Scattered violence and military action left at least three soldiers and nine militants dead in Kashmir overnight, Indian security sources said.

The situation worsened after a December 13 suicide attack on the Indian parliament that killed 14 people. India blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency and two Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, for the attacks.

Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, until last week the leader of the Lashkar organisation, was arrested last night in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, while attending a meeting, according to officials at the country's interior ministry. He was charged with making inflammatory speeches and inciting people to violence.

It was Pakistan's most significant arrest of a militant since fresh tension with India began earlier this month, and it came at a pivotal time.

On Sunday night, New Delhi was preparing to hand over a list of people in Pakistan that it suspects of terrorist and criminal acts in India, government officials said.

Pakistan says India has offered no evidence and is fabricating the charges to malign the secessionist movement in its disputed Kashmir region. Islamabad has said that, if India presents credible evidence, it will take action to rein in any militants involved.

Told of the arrest, India took a wait-and-see attitude. Mr Singh described the arrests of Mr Saeed and other militants as "a step forward in the right direction" but said more action was necessary.

"We want Pakistan to pursue it vigorously until cross-border terrorism is eliminated," he said today after a security meeting in New Delhi.

But General Rashid Quereshi, spokesman for Pakistan's military-led government, said pressure from New Delhi didn't cause Mr Saeed's arrest. Instead, he said, it was part of "an ongoing process" to curb violence and extremism. "Certainly it has nothing to do with India," Gen Quereshi said.

Last week, Pakistan arrested Jaish-e-Mohammad's leader, Maulana Masood Azhar. He remained in custody today, the government said. And 22 followers of Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammed were arrested in southern Pakistan overnight, said Tariq Jamil, the deputy inspector general of police in Karachi.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since British rule ended on the subcontinent in 1947, and two have been over predominantly Muslim Kashmir, where Islamic guerrillas are fighting for independence or merger with Pakistan.

In Kashmir today, cross-border shelling resumed, leaving at least two Indian soldiers dead, an Indian security forces official said on customary condition of anonymity. Police and residents reported new exchanges of artillery fire across the region.

In two separate incidents near Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, nine Islamic militants and a soldier were killed.